Win Bright will be tested in Hong Kong Cup repeat bid

Win Bright is zero for his last four in Japan, his home base, finishing seventh, eighth, ninth, and 10th in those starts, but when Win Bright has left Japan for Hong Kong, he has been awesome.

He has won the last two major 2,000-meter Hong Kong races that permitted international shippers – the 2019 QE II Cup and the 2019 Hong Kong Cup, both important Group 1’s – and he is back for a repeat bid in the $3.61 million Hong Kong Cup on Sunday at Sha Tin.

The Cup is the last of the four Hong Kong International Races following the 2,400-meter Vase, race 4; the 1,200-meter Sprint, race 5; and the Hong Kong Mile, race 6. First post for the program is 11:25 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, and you can catch all the action and wager at DRFBets.com.

Win Bright, as he did a year ago, has Masami Matsuoka in the irons, but he probably is facing stronger competition than in the 2019 Cup, where he beat Aidan O’Brien-trained Magic Wand by a narrow margin. This time around, O’Brien has sent a mare better than Magic Wand, the 6-year-old tigress Magical, who might or might not be slightly diminished from the peak of her powers as she nears, presumably, retirement this winter.

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In the Breeders’ Cup Turf last month at Keeneland, Magical was run down in the late stages, finishing second behind a strong performance from the filly Tarnawa over 1 1/2 miles. Magical can deliver a representative performance at that distance, but Sunday’s trip, about 1 1/4 miles, is her best. Similarly, Magical is not hapless on rain-soaked courses, but she prefers staying on the top of the ground, and her third-place finish Oct. 17 in the 1 1/4-mile Champion Stakes at Ascot came over testing turf. Three starts ago, running on good turf at Leopardstown, Magical probably delivered the race of her life, handing Ghaiyyath, the world’s top-rated horse in 2020, a three-quarter-length defeat in the Irish Champion Stakes at 1 1/4 miles. Magical has post 1 and Ryan Moore on Sunday and gets a five-pound weight break from her male rivals.

Skalleti finished a half-length in front of Magical in the Champion Stakes, a Group 1 debut from a 5-year-old gelding who made his early career mark racing over an all-weather bull-ring oval in Marseille, France. Skalleti ships out of Europe for the first time, as does his trainer, Jerome Reynier, and nearly all Skalleti’s grass races in Europe came over turf with more give than he’ll find Sunday. But Skalleti, who has been worse than third only once in a 16-race career, has a 1,600-meter good-ground Group 3 tally from late 2019 and appears to be very adaptable.

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Danon Premium finished fourth last out in Almond Eye’s Tenno Sho Autumn win at Tokyo, a race in which Win Bright was sixth, but Win Bright’s sparkling Hong Kong résumé gives him an edge Sunday.

The Japan-based filly Normcore was a solid fourth in the 2019 Hong Kong Mile and since has improved, but remains somewhat suspect in terms of raw ability and her suitability to a distance as long as 2,000 meters. Local horses Dances With Dragons, Furore, and Time Warp complete the field, with Furore easily the best of that trio.